World Politics
Challenges to the Post-War Order
Michael Flynn
Professor
Department of Political Science
011C Calvin Hall
meflynn@ksu.edu
2025-05-02
Lecture Overview
Background Review
Emerging Challenges
Moving Forward
Background Review
Four primary “pillars” of the international order
Sovereignty
Collective Security
Bretton Woods System
Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy
These things are based on and implemented using
Liberal values
Multilateral cooperation
US Hegemony
Background Review
Key Institutions
United Nations
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (World Trade Organization)
International Monetary Fund
World Bank
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Emerging Challenges
What are the issues?
(Bad) Non-state actors
Nuclear proliferation
Biological weapons
Cyberattacks
Revisionist powers (e.g. China, Russia, etc.)
Global health and pandemics
Climate change and environmental degradation
Populist movements
Political and economic instability
Moving Forward
So what’s to be done?
Lots of different issues, but there are also lots of common themes and characteristics
The work is increasingly interconnected, and so externalities from human behavior (both positive and negative) are increasingly visible
People have shared interests in solving these problems
Most human interaction is, in fact, benign/cooperative
Moving Forward
So what are some of these common themes/frameworks?
Factors that shape or affect the specifics of these frameworks
Actors: Who are the relevant players?
Interests: What do the players want? What do they value?
Institutions: What are the prevailing rules (formal or informal) that govern actors’ behavior?
Moving Forward
What’s Changed/Changing?
The world is more interconnected than ever before
Demographic and political changes affect opportunities for cooperation and conflict
Political parties, ideology, age, income, etc., all affect people’s interests and values
Influence of various groups is not constant
Moving Forward
Why does this matter?
Do you pursue policies just because they’re popular abroad?
What are the implications of these attitudes for international cooperation?
How do international actors affect the ability of the US to pursue its own interests?
Issue linkage
- Trade
- Investment
- Military basing
- Climate change
- Pandemic response
- Counter-terror operations
- Anti-piracy operations
- Peace and stability operations
Moving Forward
Other tips:
Most of the things we care about are caused by lots of other different things (complex systems)…
…But not everything has the same amount of causal influence/importance
Most of the causal relationships that we care about are probabilistic—not deterministic (i.e. more or less likely)
Be cautious when comparing what seem like apples to other apples